Coordinated efforts of various law enforcement from around the world led to the take down of the Avalanche network, which for several years allowed various botnet operators to benefit from protection against a take down and domain blacklisting.

At the same time, ESET is advising users to check their computers via its free ESET Online Scanner to determine whether they have been affected by one of the botnets using the network. The tool will remove harmful content found on the system at no charge.

The Avalanche network is a so called fast-flux or ever-changing network, and is made up of compromised hosts acting as proxy servers. This technique makes both mapping the attacker’s infrastructure and identifying the true command & control server more challenging for security experts.

ESET has a rich history of helping law enforcement around the world in anti-malware efforts, including both the Dorkbot botnet – infecting thousands of computers every week- and Operation Windigo, which was stealing credentials and redirecting web traffic to malicious content.

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